William Hershel discovers Uranus - Mar 13, 1781 - HISTORY.com William Hershel discovers Uranus Publisher A+E Networks The German-born English astronomer William Hershel discovers Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun. Herschel’s discovery of a new planet was the first to be made in modern times, and also the first to be made by use of a telescope, which allowed Herschel to distinguish Uranus as a planet, not a star, as previous astronomers believed. Herschel, who was later knighted for his historic discovery, named the planet Georgium Sidus, or the “Georgian Planet,” in honor of King George III of England. However, German astronomer Johann Bode proposed the name “Uranus” for the celestial body in order to conform to the classical mythology-derived names of other known planets. Uranus, the ancient Greek deity of the heavens, was a predecessor of the Olympian gods. By the mid-19th century, it was also the generally accepted name of the seventh planet from the sun. The planet Uranus is a gas giant like Jupiter and Saturn and is made up of hydrogen, helium, and methane.

The third largest planet, Uranus orbits the sun once every 84 earth years and is the only planet to spin perpendicular to its solar orbital plane. In January 1986, the unmanned U.S. spacecraft Voyager 2 visited the planet, discovering 10 additional moons to the five already known, and a system of faint rings around the gas giant. Related Videos Discovery: A new planet The changing shape of the solar system He stopped on something unexpected: not a point of light, but a fuzzy disk. He initially thought it was a comet, but observations over the next several days showed something amazing. A comet that bright would be quite close to the Sun, and thus move rather quickly against the background stars. This object was moving, but too slowly to be a comet. It was moving so slowly that its motion suggested it would have to be far from the Sun’s gravity, even farther away than Saturn – the farthest known planet. To be that bright and that far away, it had to be a planet. “And I will name him George...” Herschel had discovered the first new planet.

Up until this point, astronomers had known of only five other planets in the solar system: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, which are visible to the naked eye. Herschel tried to name the new planet after his benefactor, King George III of England. It was eventually named Uranus, after the father of Saturn, to fit with the mythological naming scheme of the other planets. What we can see today: The Hubble Space Telescope looks at Uranus Astronomers had actually seen Uranus many times before. It had been noted as early as 1690, when it was recorded as a star in the constellation Taurus. But only Herschel had made a telescope powerful enough to see Uranus was not a star. When the amateur astronomer tried to compare his observations with two professional astronomers, neither had telescopes powerful enough to confirm his find. Herschel’s discovery shook the astronomical world and thrilled the public. It earned him international fame and a paid astronomy job. People had imagined that other planets could exist in the solar system, but this was proof that more planets did exist. The solar system had just gotten bigger, and astronomy’s possibilities had expanded with it. The search for new planets was on.

William Herschel Biography William Herschel Biography By Nola Taylor Redd, Space.com Contributor | September 4, 2012 01:51pm ET MORE Scouring the heavens with his sister, Caroline, Sir William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus and several moons around other gas giants. In the course of his studies of the night sky, he also compiled a catalog of 2,500 celestial objects that is still in use today. But it wasn't until his mid-30s that he began to turn his eyes to the expanse above; he started his professional life as a musician. Astronomer William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus. Credit: Smithsonian Institution A musical beginning Born in Germany as Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel, the astronomer was the son of Anna Ilse Moritzen and Issak Herschel. His father was a military musician, and young William played in the same band in his early years. In 1759, Herschel left Germany for England, where he taught music before becoming an organist. In 1772, William's sister, Caroline, moved to England to live with her brother and train as a singer.

During this time, Herschel's interest in astronomy grew significantly. He rented a small telescope, and his desire to own a larger instrument led him to the process of grinding and polishing his own mirrors. Caroline never married, but served as his assistant until Herschel's death. She was the first woman to discover a comet, ultimately finding eight. She also discovered several deep-sky objects and was the first woman to be given a paid scientific position and to receive an honorary membership into the Royal Society. In 1788, at the age of 50, Herschel married the widow Mary Pitt. Their son, John, was born in 1792, and followed in his father's astronomical footsteps. Searching the skies On March 13, 1781, Herschel noticed a small object that, over the course of several nights, was slowly moving across the sky. At first he thought he had found a comet , but further observation revealed that the object was a planet. Herschel lobbied to name the new body 'Georgium Sidus', after King George III, but it was eventually named Uranus after the Greek god of the sky.

As a result of his discovery, the monarch knighted Herschel and appointed him to the position of court astronomer. The attached pension allowed him to conclude his musical career and focus his full attention on the skies. When Herschel was subsequently elected a member of the prestigious Royal Society, he received a copy of Charles Messier's "Catalog of Nebulae and Star Clusters," a list of diverse nebulae in the night sky. The catalog piqued his interest, and he began to examine the fuzzy objects. On Oct. 23, 1783, he began a sky survey of his own, standing on a ladder while peering through his telescope and describing the objects he saw to his sister, Caroline. By pointing the stationary telescope at a single strip of the sky, he was able to observe east-west bands over the course of the night. The next night, he would adjust his telescope to a higher or lower point and observe another parallel strip. Eventually, he examined the entire swatch of sky that could be seen over Great Britain.

Over 20 years, he observed 2,500 new nebulae and star clusters and recorded them in "The General Catalogue of Nebulae." The catalog was eventually enlarged and renamed the "New General Catalogue," and many non-stellar objects are identified by their NGC numbers. Of the 7,840 nebulae and clusters in the catalog today, 4,630 were discovered by Herschel and his son. In 1789, Herschel finished construction on 40-foot-long (12 meters) telescope, the largest of the day. But the unwieldy instrument came with a number of problems, and Herschel tended to use the smaller, 20-foot (6-meter) telescope. Appearing like a cyclops gazing off into space, Saturn's moon Mimas and its large Herschel Crater are profiled in this view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft taken on Feb. 13, 2010. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute Herschel discovered several moons around the gas giants. In 1787, he discovered two moons around Uranus: Titania and Oberon.

In 1789, using his larger telescope, he found Saturn' s sixth and seventh moons , Enceladus and Mimas. [ Meet Mimas: Saturn's Death Star Moon ] In 1800, Herschel performed a simple experiment determining the temperature of the different colors of sunlight passed through a prism. He noticed the region just beyond the red color was even higher than light in the visible spectrum, and used his measurements to deduce the presence of what is now known to be infrared radiation. The European Space Agency's infrared space observatory was subsequently named for him. Herschel proposed the name " asteroids " for the large bodies discovered in 1801. He was elected vice president of the newly formed Royal Astronomical Society in 1820 and president the following year. His last published paper cataloged 145 double stars . Herschel died in England on Aug. 25, 1822, at the age of 84. Craters on the moon, Mars, and Mimas are named for the astronomer.

The asteroid 2000 Herschel bears his name, and the symbol for the planet Uranus features the capital letter H in his honor. — Nola Taylor Redd March 13: William Herschel Discovers Uranus | The Mary Sue Today in Geek History: William Herschel Discovers Uranus by Jeff LaSala | 1:15 pm, March 13th, 2013 We love our planets. We clap our hands when we discover something new about one, we raise our hands when their moons need naming, and we lament when it turns out one of them isn’t a planet after all (but we secretly still pretend it is). We also positively freak out when we discover a new one. For example: On March 13th, 1781, astronomer Sir Frederick William Herschel announced the discovery of Uranus. Astronomical comedy was never the same, because no celestial object can generate more jokes than Uranus. The interesting part of this story is that we already knew about Uranus. It was up there, drifting dimly, one of the few planets visible to the naked eye — just barely, if you knew where to look.

English astronomer John Flamsteed noticed it almost one hundred years prior, but we always just assumed it was a star. It wasn’t until Herschel did a survey of all stars down to a magnitude eight — those significantly dimmer than can be seen by the naked eye — that he noticed one that was a little off. He assumed it was a comet. It moved differently, but it did lack a tail. The others he told about his findings believed it was a planet long before he did, but Herschel — Sir Freddy to his friends? — is still credited with finding it. Oh, and he also discovered infrared radiation, and the Herschel Space Observatory is, of course, named after him. And because Pluto hasn’t been in the news enough lately, it’s worth mentioning that on this day in 1930, Pluto’s discovery was also announced. They’d known about it for almost a month by then, but they held off talking up the then-9th-planet to coincide with Uranus’s 1781 debut. Hey, did you ever notice that Uranus breaks the mold of planetary names?

Uranus is Greek god (the father of Cronus, aka Saturn), sort of, not Roman like all the rest. Mostly this seems to be because there really wasn’t any Roman equivalent. They called him Caelus, the Sky Father, but he wasn’t a proper god in Greek myth — more of a primordial personification of the sky born from Chaos. Mythology is murky. Still, it’s way more fun to say Uranus . (Images courtesy of Wikipedia) William Herschel (1738-1822) Friedrich Wilhelm (William) Herschel (November 15, 1738 - August 25, 1822) Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel was born in Hannover (Germany) in 1738 as son of Issak Herschel (1707-1767), a musician in the regimental band of the Foot-Guards, and Anna Ilse (b. Moritzen). F.W. Herschel himself became also musician (an oboist) and joined his father and his brother Jacob in that band.

In 1759, after experiencing the 1757 battle at Hastenbeck, he and Jacob went to England. Jacob returned to Hannover after two years, but Wilhelm (called William in England) stayed. After teaching music for some time, he became organist at Halifax in 1765, and organist and conductor at Bath in 1766. In 1772, William took home in Bath, and was joined by his sister Caroline . On May 10, 1773, at age 35, William Herschel purchased a copy of James Ferguson's book, Astronomy ( Ferguson 1756 ), and found interest in astronomy. His early books also included Robert Smith's Opticks ( Smith 1738 ) and Harmonics ( Smith 1749 ). Consequently, he started to become a skilled maker of the most powerful telescopes of his time: After 1774, he had acquired skills to make specula mirrors superior to any which had been made before.

Moreover, he started to observe the heavens; among his first objects, observed on the 4th of March, 1774, was the Orion Nebula , which he had found mentioned in Smith's Opticks. On March 13, 1781 William Herschel discovered what he first thought to be a comet, but was later found to be planet Uranus. In recognition of this discovery, he was elected to the Royal Society on December 7, 1781, and awarded an annual grant by King George III of England, which enabled him to give up his carrer in music (on May 19, 1782) and concentrate on astronomy as the Court Astronomer of the King. On December 7, 1781, the day of his election to the Royal Society, his friend, William Watson, presented a copy of Messier 's (and Méchain 's) Catalog of Nebulae and Star Clusters to William. This catalog stimulated his interest in clusters and nebulae.

At that time, he had only observed four nebulae: The Orion Nebula together with its companion M43 (1774), globular cluster M13 in Hercules (1779), and the Andromeda "Nebula" M31 (1780). In August 1782, he started to investigate Messier's objects with his superior telescopes; his first observation was that of globular cluster M5 in Serpens. Soon, he "surmised" (to say it in his own words), "that several nebulae might yet remain undiscovered." After a first finding (of the Saturn Nebula, NGC 7009 ) following September 1782, he started his sytematical and extensive survey of the skies visible from his location in England in March, 1783, always assisted by his sister Caroline.

After initial trial-and-error attempts, he started with regular, systematical sky "sweeps" on October 23, 1783, with his 18.7-inch (47.5 cm) aperture, 20-foot focal length reflector, with standard magnification 157 and a field of view of 15'4". He made his next discovery on October 28, 1783: NGC 7184, Herschel's H II.1, a little conspicuous galaxy in Aquarius of 11.2 mag. Only 1 1/2 years later, he had cataloged 1,000 new objects ( W.H. 1786 ), completed a second 1,000 in 1789 ( W.H. 1789 ), and a final additional 500 objects in 1802 ( W.H. 1802 ), so he ended up in discovering about 2500 new "nebulae" and star clusters in about 20 years.

In 1783, Herschel published his observations leading to the discovery of the Solar Motion. He determined that our solar system is moving between the neighboring stars in the direction of the star Lambda Herculis; he introduced the term Solar Apex for this dierction ( W.H. 1783 ). In 1787, William Herschel discovered two moons of Uranus, Titania and Oberon. On May 8, 1788, William Herschel married Mary Pitt, former Baldwin, the widow of the wealthy London merchant John Pitt, who had died in 1786. On March 7, 1792, their only son, John Herschel , was born in Slough, England. In 1789, William Herschel completed his largest telescope, a 48-inch (1.2-meter) aperture, after efforts of about two years. On August 28, on the occasion of first light for this instrument, he discovered Saturn's sixth known moon Enceladus, and on September 17, its seventh known moon, Mimas.

This telescope was world's largest telescope for over 50 years, until Lord Rosse erected his 72-inch "Leviathan" at Parsonstown in 1845. However, this large scope was difficult to handle and thus less used than his favorite 18.7-inch reflector which was used to discover most of the nebulae. Had he used it more frequently, he soon had discovered more cosmic phenomena such as the "spiral nebulae", a discovery now left to Lord Rosse. William Herschel visited Paris in 1801 where he met Napoleon Bonaparte as well as French scientists inluding Laplace and the old Charles Messier . Sir William Herschel died on August 25, 1822 in Slough, England, and was buried in the church of Upton on September 7. Consequently, his sister Caroline left England and returned to Hannover on October 10, 1822. His wife Mary continued to live in Slough until her death in January 1832. Their son John continued the astronomical observations of his father in Slough from 1822 to 1833.

William Herschel was honored lately by the astronomical community by naming Moon crater Herschel (5.7S, 2.1W, 40 km diameter, in 1935), together with his son John by naming Mars crater Herschel (14.9S, 230.3W, 304 km diameter, in 1973), and a crater on Saturn's moon Mimas (2.9N, 109.5W, in 1982). John and Caroline Herschel are honored with separate Moon craters. Asteroid (2000) Herschel was discovered by J. Schubart at Sternwarte Sonneberg on July 29, 1960, and provisionally designated 1960 OA; a prediscovery observation had been designated 1934 NX. The William Herschel Telescope, within the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes on the Canary Islands, was named after him, as was ESA's "Far IR and Submillimeter Space Telescope (FIRST)," an astronomical satellite to be launched in 2007.

As the most renowned astronomer of his time, William Herschel contributed significantly to most branches of astronomy: He also investigated the proper motion of stars and derived the peculiar motion of the solar system toward the direction of constellation Hercules, modelled the Milky Way galaxy from stellar statistics, and speculated about the nature of the nebulae, including a discussion of the possibility of external island universes (galaxies) which had been brought up by Kant. He also contributed to physics (especially optics) and, e.g., discovered the infrared light . Links Cool Cosmos Discovery of Infrared Sir Frederick William Herschel (1738-1822) was born in Hanover, Germany, and became well known as both a musician and an astronomer. He emigrated to England in 1757, and with his sister Caroline, constructed telescopes to survey the night sky. Their work resulted in several catalogs of double stars and nebulae. William Herschel is perhaps most famous for his discovery of the planet Uranus in 1781, the first new planet found since antiquity. Caroline Herschel gained fame for the discovery of several comets.

In the year 1800, William Herschel made another very important discovery. He was interested in learning how much heat passed through the different colored filters he used to observe the Sun and noticed that filters of different colors seemed to pass different levels of heat. Herschel thought that the colors themselves might contain different levels of heat, so he devised a clever experiment to investigate his hypothesis. Herschel directed sunlight through a glass prism to create a spectrum - the "rainbow" created when light is divided into its colors - and measured the temperature of each color. He used three thermometers with blackened bulbs (to better absorb the heat) and placed one bulb in each color while the other two were placed beyond the spectrum as control samples. As he measured the temperatures of the violet, blue, green, yellow, orange and red light, he noticed that all of the colors had temperatures higher than the controls and that the temperature of the colors increased from the violet to the red part of the spectrum. After noticing this pattern, Herschel decided to measure the temperature just beyond the red portion of the spectrum in a region apparently devoid of sunlight. To his surprise, he found that this region had the highest temperature of all.

Herschel performed further experiments on what he called the "calorific rays" that existed beyond the red part of the spectrum and found that they were reflected, refracted, absorbed and transmitted just like visible light. What Sir William had discovered was a form of light (or radiation) beyond red light. These "calorific rays" were later renamed infrared rays or infrared radiation (the prefix infra means `below'). Herschel's experiment was important not only because it led to the discovery of infrared, but also because it was the first time that someone showed that there were forms of light that we cannot see with our eyes. Herschel's original prism and mirror are on display at the National Museum of Science and Industry in London, England. Infrared image of a hurricane (NASA) Today, infrared technology has many exciting and useful applications. In the field of infrared astronomy, new and fascinating discoveries are being made about the Universe. Medical infrared imaging is a very useful diagnostic tool. Infrared cameras are used for police and security work as well as in fire fighting and in the military. Infrared imaging is used to detect heat loss in buildings and in testing electronic systems.

Infrared satellites have been used to monitor the Earth's weather, to study vegetation patterns, and to study geology and ocean temperatures. If you are interested in trying this experiment see our activity on the Herschel Infrared Experiment. The year 2000 marked the 200th aniversary of Sir William Herschel's discovery of infrared. William Herschel William Herschel Location of death: Slough, Buckinghamshire, England Cause of death: unspecified Remains: Buried, St. Laurence Churchyard, Upton, Berkshire, England Gender: Male Nationality: England Executive summary: Mapped heavens, discovered Uranus Frederick William Herschel, generally known as Sir William Herschel, English astronomer, was born at Hanover on the 15th of November 1738. His father was a musician employed as hautboy player in the Hanoverian guard. The family had left Moravia for Saxony in the early part of the 17th century on account of religious troubles, they themselves being Protestants.

Herschel's earlier education was necessarily of a very limited character, chiefly owing to the warlike commotions of his country; but being at all times an indomitable student, he, by his own exertions, more than repaired this deficiency. He became a very skilful musician, both theoretical and practical; while his attainments as a self-taught mathematician were fully adequate to the prosecution of those branches of astronomy which he so eminently advanced and adorned. Whatever he did he did methodically and thoroughly; and in this methodical thoroughness lay the secret of what Fran�ois Arago very properly termed his astonishing scientific success. In 1752, at the age of fourteen, he joined the band of the Hanoverian guard, and with his detachment visited England in 1755, accompanied by his father and eldest brother; in the following year he returned to his native country; but the hardships of campaigning during the Seven Years' War imperilling his health, his parents privately removed him from the regiment, and on the 26th of July 1757 despatched him to England.

There, as might have been expected, the earlier part of his career was attended with formidable difficulties and much privation. We find him engaged in several towns in the north of England as organist and teacher of music, which were not lucrative occupations. But the tide of his fortunes began to flow when he obtained in 1766 the appointment of organist to the Octagon chapel in Bath, at that time the resort of the wealth and fashion of the city. During the next five or six years he became the leading musical authority, and the director of all the chief public musical entertainments at Bath. His circumstances having thus become easier, he revisited Hanover for the purpose of bringing back with him his sister Caroline Herschel , whose services he much needed in his multifarious undertakings. She arrived in Bath in August 1772, being at that time in her twenty-third year.

She thus describes her brother's life soon after her arrival: "He used to retire to bed with a bason of milk or a glass of water, with Smith's Harmonics and Ferguson's Astronomy, etc., and so went to sleep buried under his favorite authors; and his first thoughts on waking were how to obtain instruments for viewing those objects himself of which he had been reading." It is not without significance that we find him thus reading Smith's Harmonics; to that study loyalty to his profession would impel him; as a reward for his thoroughness this led him to Smith's Optics; and this, by a natural sequence, again led him to astronomy, for the purposes of which the chief optical instruments were devised. It was in this way that he was introduced to the writings of Ferguson and Keill, and subsequently to those of Lalande, whereby he educated himself to become an astronomer of undying fame. In those days telescopes were very rare, very expensive and not very efficient, for the Dollonds had not as yet perfected even their beautiful little achromatics of 2 3/4 inches aperture.

So Herschel was obliged to content himself with hiring a small Gregorian reflector of about 2 inch aperture, which he had seen exposed for loan in a tradesman's shop. Not satisfied with this implement, he procured a small lens of about 18 feet focal length, and set his sister to work on a pasteboard tube to match it, so as to make him a telescope. This unsatisfactory material was soon replaced by tin, and thus a sorry sort of vision was obtained of Jupiter, Saturn and the moon. He then sought in London for a reflector of much larger dimensions; but no such instrument was on sale; and the terms demanded for the construction of a reflecting telescope of 5 or 6 feet focal length he regarded as too exorbitant even for the gratification of such desires as his own. So he was driven to the only alternative that remained; he must himself build a large telescope.

His first step in this direction was to purchase the debris of an amateur's implements for grinding and polishing small mirrors; and thus, by slow degrees, and by indomitable perseverance, he in 1774 had, as he says, the satisfaction of viewing the heavens with a Newtonian telescope of 6 feet focal length made by his own bands. But he was not contented to be a mere star-gazer; on the contrary he had from the very first conceived the gigantic project of surveying the entire heavens, and, if possible, of ascertaining the plan of their general structure by a settled mode of procedure if only he could provide himself with adequate instrumental means. For this purpose he, his brother and his sister toiled for many years at the grinding and polishing of hundreds of specula, always retaining the best and recasting the others, until the most perfect of the earlier products had been surpassed This was the work of the daylight in those seasons of the year when the fashionable visitors of Bath had quitted the place, and had thus freed the family from professional duties. After 1774 every available hour of the night was devoted to the long-hoped for scrutiny of the skies.

In those days no machinery had been invented for the construction of telescopic mirrors; the man who had the hardihood to undertake polishing them doomed himself to walk leisurely and uniformly round an upright post for many hours, without removing his hands from the mirror, until his work was done. On these occasions Herschel received his food from the hands of his faithful sister. But his reward was nigh. In May 1780 his first two papers containing some results of his observations on the variable star "Mira" and the mountains of the moon were communicated to the Royal Society through the influential introduction of Dr. William Watson. Herschel had made his acquaintance in a characteristic manner. In order to obtain a sight of the moon the astronomer had taken his telescope into the street opposite his house; the celebrated physician happening to pass at the time, and seeing his eye removed for a moment from the instrument, requested permission to take his place. The mutual courtesies and intelligent conversation which ensued soon ripened this casual acquaintance into a solid and enduring regard. The phenomena of variable stars were examined by Herschel as a guide to what might be occurring in our own sun.

The sun, he knew, rotated on its axis, and he knew that dark spots often exist on its photosphere; the questions that he put to himself were -- Are there dark spots also on variable stars? Do the stars also rotate on their axes? Or are they sometimes partially eclipsed by the intervention of opaque bodies? And he went on to enquire, What are these singular spots upon the sun? And have they any practical relation to the inhabitants of this planet? To these questions he applied his telescopes and his thoughts; and he communicated the results to the Royal Society in no less than six memoirs, occupying very many pages in the Philosophical Transactions, and extending in date from 1780 to 1801. It was in the latter year that these remarkable papers culminated in the inquiry whether any relation could be traced in the recurrence of sun-spots, regarded as evidences of solar activity, and the varying seasons of our planet, as exhibited by the varying price of corn. Herschel's reply was inconclusive; nor has a final solution of the related problems yet been obtained.

In 1781 he communicated to the Royal Society the first of a series of papers on the rotation of the planets and of their several satellites. The object which he had in view was not so much to ascertain the times of their rotation as to discover whether those rotations are strictly uniform. From the result he expected to gather, by analogy, the probability of an alteration in the length of our own day. These inquiries occupy the greater part of seven memoirs extending from 1781 to 1797. While engaged on them he noticed the curious appearance of a white spot near te each of the poles of the planet Mars. On investigating the inclination of its axis to the plane of its orbit, and finding that it differed little from that of the earth, he concluded that its changes of climate also would resemble our own, and that these white patches were probably polar snow. He also discovered that, as far as his observations extended, the times of the rotations of the various satellites round their axes conform to the analogy of our moon by equaling the times of their revolution around their primaries. Here again we perceive that his discoveries arose out of the systematic and comprehensive nature of his investigation. Nothing with such a man is accidental.

In the same year (1781) Herschel made a discovery which completely altered the character of his professional life. In the course of a methodical review of the heavens he lighted on an object which at first he supposed to be a comet, but which, by its subsequent motions and appearance, averred itself to be new planet, moving outside the orbit of Saturn. The name of Georgium Sidus was by him assigned to it, but has by general consent been laid aside in favor of Uranus. The object was detected with a 7 foot reflector having an aperture of 6-1/2 inches; subsequently, when he had provided himself with a much more powerful telescope, of 20 foot focal length, he discovered, as he believed, no less than six Uranian satellites. Modern observations, while abolishing four of these supposed attendants, have added two others apparently not observed by Herschel. Seven memoirs on the subject were communicated by him to the Royal Society, extending from the date of the discovery in 1781 to 1815. A noteworthy peculiarity in Herschel's mode of observation led to the discovery of this planet.

He had observed that the spurious diameters of stars are not much affected by increasing the magnifying powers, but that the case is different with other celestial objects; hence if anything in his telescopic field struck him as unusual in aspect, be immediately varied the magnifying power in order to decide its nature. Thus Uranus was discovered; and had a similar method been applied to Neptune, that planet would have been found at Cambridge some months before it was recognized at Berlin. We now come to the beginning of Herschel's most important series of observations, culminating in what ought probably to be regarded as his capital discovery. A material part of the task which he had set himself embraced the determination of the relative distances of the stars from our sun and from each other. Now, in the course of his scrutiny of the heavens, he had observed many stars in apparently very close contiguity, but often differing greatly in relative brightness.

He concluded that, on the average, the brighter star would be the nearer to us, the smaller enormously more distant; and considering that an astronomer on the earth, in consequence of its immense orbital displacement of some 180 millions of miles every six months, would see such a pair of stars under different perspective aspects, he perceived that the measurement of these changes should lead to an approximate determination of the stars' relative distances. He therefore mapped down the places and aspects of all the double stars that he met with, and communicated in 1782 and 1785 very extensive catalogues of the results. Indeed, his very last scientific memoir, sent to the Royal Astronomical Society in the year 1822, when he was its first president and already in the eighty-fourth year of his age, related to these investigations. In the memoir of 1782 he threw out the hint that these apparently contiguous stars might be genuine pairs in mutual revolution; but he significantly added that the time had not yet arrived for settling the question. Eleven years afterwards (1793), he remeasured the relative positions of many such couples, and we may conceive what his feelings must have been at finding his prediction verified.

For he ascertained that some of these stars circulated around each other, after the manner required by the laws of gravitation, and thus demonstrated the action among the distant members of the starry firmament of the same mechanical laws which bind together the harmonious motions of our solar system. This sublime discovery, announced in 1802, would of itself suffice to immortalize his memory. If only he had lived long enough to learn the approximate distances of some of these binary combinations, he would at once have been able to calculate their masses relative to that of our own sun; and the quantities being, as we now know, strictly comparable, he would have found another of his analogical conjectures realized. In the year 1782 Herschel was invited to Windsor by King George III , and accepted the king's offer to become his private astronomer, and henceforth devote himself wholly to a scientific career. His salary was fixed at �200 per annum, to which an addition of �50 per annum was subsequently made for the astronomical assistance of his sister. Dr.

Watson, to whom alone the amount was mentioned, made the natural remark, "Never before was honor purchased by a monarch at so cheap a rate." In this way the great astronomer removed from Bath, first to Datchet and soon afterwards permanently to Slough, within easy access of his royal patron at Windsor. The old pursuits at Bath were soon resumed at Slough, but with renewed vigor and without the former professional interruptions. The greater part, in fact, of the papers already referred to are dated from Datchet and Slough; for the magnificent astronomical speculations in which he was engaged, though for the most part conceived in the earlier portion of his philosophical career, required years of patient observation before they could be fully examined and realized. It was at Slough in 1783 that he wrote his first memorable paper on the "Motion of the Solar System in Space", a sublime speculation, yet through his genius realized by considerations of the utmost simplicity. He returned to the same subject with fuller details in 1805. It was also after his removal to Slough that he published his first memoir on the construction of the heavens, which from the first had been the inspiring idea of his varied toils.

In a long series of remarkable papers, addressed as usual to the Royal Society, and extending from the year 1784 to 1818, when he was eighty years of age, he demonstrated the fact that our sun is a star situated not far from the bifurcation of the Milky Way, and that all the stars visible to us lie more or less in clusters scattered throughout a comparatively thin, but immensely extended stratum. At one time he imagined that his powerful instruments had pierced through this stellar stratum, and that he had approximately determined the form of some of its boundaries. In the last of his memoirs, having convinced himself of his error, he admitted that to his telescopes the Milky Way was "fathomless." On either side of this assemblage of stars, presumably in ceaseless motion round their common center of gravity, Herschel discovered a canopy of discrete nebulous masses, such as those from the condensation of which he supposed the whole stellar universe to have been formed -- a magnificent conception, pursued with a force of genius and put to the practical test of observation. with an industry almost incredible.

Hitherto we have said nothing about the great reflecting telescope, of 40 foot focal length and 4 foot aperture, the construction of which is often, though mistakenly, regarded as his chief performance. The full description of this celebrated instrument will be found in the 85th volume of the Transactions of the Royal Society. On the day that it was finished (August 28, 1789) Herschel saw at the first view, in a grandeur not witnessed before, the Saturnian system with six satellites, five of which had been discovered long before by Christiaan Huygens and Giovanni Domenico Cassini , while the sixth, subsequently named Enceladus, he had, two years before, sighted by glimpses in his exquisite little telescope of 6-1/2 inch aperture, but now saw in unmistakable brightness with the towering giant he had just completed. On the 17th of September he discovered a seventh, which proved to be the nearest to the globe of Saturn. It has since received the name of Mimas.

It is somewhat remarkable that, notwithstanding his long and repeated scrutinies of this planet, the eighth satellite, Hyperion, and the crape ring should have escaped him. Herschel married, on the 8th of May 1788, the widow of Mr. John Pitt, a wealthy London merchant, by whom he had an only son, John Herschel . The prince regent conferred a Hanoverian knighthood upon him in 1816. But a far more valued and less tardy distinction was the Copley medal assigned to him by his associates in the Royal Society in 1781. He died at Slough on the 25th of August 1822, in the eighty-fourth year of his age, and was buried under the tower of St. Laurences Church, Upton, within a few hundred yards of the old site of the 40 foot telescope. A mural tablet on the wall of the church bears a Latin inscription from the pen of the late Dr. Goodall, provost of Eton College.

BBC - Solar System - William Herschel (pictures, video, facts & news) Asteroids explained Patrick Moore describes the asteroid belt and its discovery. Sir Patrick Moore explains how the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter was discovered. He also talks about Bode's Law, an 18th century empirical rule that was once thought to predict planets' orbits. It is now discredited by astronomers, including Sir Patrick. About William Herschel Frederick William Herschel,KH, FRS (German: Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel; 15 November 1738 – 25 August 1822) was a British astronomer and composer of German origin, and brother of fellow astronomer Caroline Herschel, with whom he worked. Born in the Electorate of Hanover, Herschel followed his father into the Military Band of Hanover, before migrating to Great Britain in 1757 at the age of nineteen. Herschel constructed his first large telescope in 1774, after which he spent nine years carrying out sky surveys to investigate double stars. The resolving power of the Herschel telescopes revealed that the nebulae in the Messier catalogue were clusters of stars.

Herschel published catalogues of nebulae in 1802 (2,500 objects) and in 1820 (5,000 objects). In the course of an observation on 13 March 1781 he realized that one celestial body he had observed was not a star, but a planet, Uranus. This was the first planet to be discovered since antiquity and Herschel became famous overnight. As a result of this discovery, George III appointed him Court Astronomer. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society and grants were provided for the construction of new telescopes. Herschel pioneered the use of astronomical spectrophotometry as a diagnostic tool, using prisms and temperature measuring equipment to measure the wavelength distribution of stellar spectra. Other work included an improved determination of the rotation period of Mars, the discovery that the Martian polar caps vary seasonally, the discovery of Titania and Oberon (moons of Uranus) and Enceladus and Mimas (moons of Saturn). In addition, Herschel discovered infrared radiation. Herschel was made a Knight of the Royal Guelphic Order in 1816.

He was the first President of the Royal Astronomical Society when it was founded in 1820. He died in August 1822, and his work was continued by his only son, John Herschel. Who Discovered Uranus (and How Do You Pronounce It)? Who Discovered Uranus (and How Do You Pronounce It)? By Nola Taylor Redd, Space.com Contributor | November 30, 2012 12:14pm ET MORE Did you ever meet a person and wonder what their parents were thinking when they picked out their child's name? Many people may do the same when they are required to give a presentation on the seventh planet in the solar system. But just how do you pronounce the name of the smallest gas giant ? How did Uranus get its name? The first six planets in the solar system have been visible to observers throughout human history and were named for Roman gods. But because it orbits so far from the sun , Uranus was not visible with the naked eye. Astronomer William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus.

Credit: Smithsonian Institution Sir William Herschel found the seventh planet on March 13, 1781, while scouring the night sky for comets; he initially thought he'd discovered another icy body. When it came time to propose a moniker, he suggested naming it for his patron, King George III, which would have made it Georgium Sidus, or George's Star. But the name was not widely appreciated outside of England. "Herschel," after its discoverer, was also suggested, as was "Neptune." Ultimately, German astronomer Johann Elert Bode named the planet after an ancient Greek god of the sky. Bode argued that as Saturn was the father of Jupiter, the new planet should be named for the father of Saturn. (Uranus is also the only planet to be named after a Greek god rather than a Roman one.) Bode's colleague, Martin Klaproth, supported his choice and named his newly discovered element "uranium." Can you pronounce Uranus (without snickering)? Most people are taught that the name of the tilted planet sounds like "your-anus," a pronunciation sure to elicit snickers.

It seems particularly humorous when you discuss the methane composition of Uranus , or you want to talk about how hot Uranus is . (You know you smiled a little.) According to NASA, most scientists say YOOR-un-us. Unfortunately, because it is so rarely heard outside the walls of academia, it almost seems to call even more attention to the avoided pronunciation. — Nola Taylor Redd, SPACE.com Contributor Related: Sir William Herschel | British-German astronomer | Britannica.com Sir William Herschel Alternative Title: Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel Sir William Herschel Galileo Sir William Herschel, original name Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel (born Nov. 15, 1738, Hannover , Hanover—died Aug. 25, 1822, Slough , Buckinghamshire , Eng.), German-born British astronomer, the founder of sidereal astronomy for the systematic observation of the heavens. He discovered the planet Uranus, hypothesized that nebulae are composed of stars, and developed a theory of stellar evolution. He was knighted in 1816. Sir William Herschel, detail of an oil painting by L.

Abbott, 1785; in the National Portrait … Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London Early life. Herschel’s father was an army musician. Following the same profession, the boy played in the band of the Hanoverian Guards. After the French occupation of Hanover in 1757, he escaped to England , where at first he earned a living by copying music . But he steadily improved his position by becoming a music teacher, performer, and composer, until in 1766 he was appointed organist of a fashionable chapel in Bath , the well-known spa. By this time, the intellectual curiosity he had acquired from his father led him from the practice to the theory of music, which he studied in Robert Smith’s Harmonics. From this book he turned to Smith’s A Compleat System of Opticks, which introduced him to the techniques of telescope construction and whetted his appetite for viewing the night sky.

Combining obstinacy with boundless energy, William was not content to observe the nearby Sun, Moon , and planets, as did nearly all astronomers of his day, but was determined to study the distant celestial bodies as well, and he realized he would need telescopes with large mirrors to collect enough light, larger, in fact, than opticians could supply at reasonable cost. He was soon forced to grind his own mirrors. They were ground from metal disks of copper, tin, and antimony in various proportions. In 1781 his ambitions outran the capacities of the local foundries, and so he prepared to cast molten metal into disks in the basement of his own home; but the first mirror cracked on cooling, and on the second attempt the metal ran out onto the flagstones, after which even he accepted temporary defeat. His later and more successful attempts produced ever-larger mirrors of superb quality—his telescopes proved far superior even to those used at the Greenwich Observatory. He also made his own eyepieces, the strongest with a magnifying power of 6,450 times.

At Bath, he was helped in his researches by his brother Alexander, who had come from Hanover, and his sister, Caroline, who was his faithful assistant through much of his career. News of this extraordinary household began to spread in scientific circles. He made two preliminary telescopic surveys of the heavens. Then, in 1781, during his third and most complete survey of the night sky, William came upon an object that he realized was not an ordinary star . Britannica Stories Ringling Bros. Folds Its Tent It proved to be the planet Uranus , the first planet to be discovered since prehistoric times. William became famous almost overnight. His friend Dr. William Watson , Jr., introduced him to the Royal Society of London, which awarded him the Copley Medal for the discovery of Uranus, and elected him a Fellow. Watson also helped him to secure in 1782 an annual pension of £200 from George III . He could thus give up music and devote himself exclusively to astronomy. At this time William was appointed as an astronomer to George III, and the Herschels moved to Datchet, near Windsor Castle .

Although he was 43 years old when he became a professional astronomer, William worked night after night to develop a “natural history” of the heavens. A fundamental problem for which Herschel’s big telescopes were ideally suited concerned the nature of nebulae , which appear as luminous patches in the sky. Some astronomers thought they were nothing more than clusters of innumerable stars the light of which blends to form a milky appearance. Others held that some nebulae were composed of a luminous fluid. When William’s interest in nebulae developed in the winter of 1781–82, he quickly found that his most powerful telescope could resolve into stars several nebulae that appeared “milky” to less well equipped observers. He was convinced that other nebulae would eventually be resolved into individual stars with more powerful instruments. This encouraged him to argue in 1784 and 1785 that all nebulae were formed of stars and that there was no need to postulate the existence of a mysterious luminous fluid to explain the observed facts.

Nebulae that could not yet be resolved must be very distant systems, he maintained; and, since they seem large to the observer, their true size must indeed be vast—possibly larger even than the star system of which the Sun is a member. By this reasoning, William was led to postulate the existence of what later were called “island universes” of stars. Theory of the evolution of stars. Britannica Lists & Quizzes Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies In order to interpret the differences between these star clusters, it was natural for William to emphasize their relative densities, which he did by contrasting a cluster of tightly packed stars with others in which the stars were widely scattered. These formations showed that attractive forces were at work: with the passage of time, he maintained, widely scattered stars would no doubt condense into one or more tightly packed clusters. In other words, a group of widely scattered stars was at an earlier stage of its development than one whose stars were tightly packed. Thus, William made change in time, or evolution, a fundamental explanatory concept in astronomy.

In 1785 he developed a cosmogony—a theory concerning the origin of the universe: the stars originally were scattered throughout infinite space , in which attractive forces gradually organized them into even more fragmented and tightly packed clusters. Turning then to the system of stars of which the Sun is part, he sought to determine its shape on the basis of two assumptions: (1) that with his telescope he could see all the stars in our system, and (2) that within the system the stars are regularly spread out. Both of these assumptions he subsequently had to abandon. But in his studies he gave the first major example of the usefulness of stellar statistics in that he could count the stars and interpret this data in terms of the extent in space of the Galaxy’s star system. Other astronomers, cut off from the evidence by the modest size of their telescopes and unwilling to follow William in his bold theorizing, could only look on with varying degrees of sympathy or skepticism . Astronomy and Space Quiz In 1787 the Herschels moved to Old Windsor, and the following year to nearby Slough, where William spent the rest of his life.

Night after night, whenever the Moon and weather permitted, he observed the sky in the company of Caroline, who recorded his observations. On overcast nights, William would post a watchman to summon him if the clouds should break. Often in the daytime, Caroline would summarize the results of their work while he directed the construction of telescopes, many of which he sold to supplement their income. His largest instrument, too cumbersome for regular use, had a mirror made of speculum metal, with a diameter of 122 centimetres (48 inches) and a focal length of 12 metres (40 feet). Completed in 1789, it became one of the technical wonders of the 18th century. Connect with Britannica Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest William’s achievement, in a field in which he became a professional only in middle life, was made possible by his own total dedication and the selfless support of Caroline. He seems not to have considered the possibility of marriage until after the death in 1786 of a friend and neighbour, John Pitt, whose widow, Mary, was a charming and pleasant woman.

Before long, William proposed marriage; he and Mary would live in the Pitt house, while Caroline would remain at Observatory House in Slough. But Mrs. Pitt was shrewd enough to realize that William’s commitment would be to Observatory House, which they made their principal home after their marriage on May 8, 1788. William continued his labour in astronomy, but as the rigours of observing took their toll of William’s health, he came to appreciate more and more the comforts that Mary’s sensible management brought to his home. Theory of the structure of nebulae. William’s grand concept of stellar organization received a jolt on Nov. 13, 1790, when he observed a remarkable nebula, which he was forced to interpret as a central star surrounded by a cloud of “luminous fluid.” This discovery contradicted his earlier views. Hitherto William had reasoned that many nebulae that he was unable to resolve (separate into distinct stars), even with his best telescopes, might be distant “island universes” (such objects are now known as galaxies).

He was able, however, to adapt his earlier theory to this new evidence by concluding that the central star he had observed was condensing out of the surrounding cloud under the forces of gravity . In 1811 he extended his cosmogony backward in time to the stage when stars had not yet begun to form out of the fluid. Trending Topics Opium Wars This example of William’s theorizing is typical of his thinking: an unrivalled wealth of observations interpreted by means of bold though vulnerable assumptions. For example, in dealing with the structural organization of the heavens, he assumed that all stars were equally bright, so that differences in apparent brightness are an index only of differences in distances. Throughout his career he stubbornly refused to acknowledge the accumulating evidence that contradicted this assumption. Herschel’s labours through 20 years of systematic sweeps for nebulae (1783–1802) resulted in three catalogs listing 2,500 nebulae and star clusters that he substituted for the 100 or so milky patches previously known. He also cataloged 848 double stars —pairs of stars that appear close together in space, and measurements of the comparative brightness of stars.

He observed that double stars did not occur by chance as a result of random scattering of stars in space but that they actually revolved about each other. His 70 published papers include not only studies of the motion of the solar system through space and the announcement in 1800 of the discovery of infrared rays but also a succession of detailed investigations of the planets and other members of the solar system. More about Sir William Herschel 18 References found in Britannica Articles Assorted References

Question: What did William Herschel discover in 1781?
Answer: URANUS